This invention relates to improved air treating gels employing an aqueous gel of an amide polymer.
The use of aqueous gels in air freshener devices and the like is well known and is shown, for example, in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,691,615 and 2,927,055. In such prior art devices, the gels have been described as consisting of over 90 percent, usually from 96 to 99 percent, of an aqueous medium. Of the aqueous medium, 1 to 10 percent comprises a plurality of volatile air treating components which are compatible, uniformly dispersible in water, and which normally volatilize slowly at room temperature, and 1 to 4 percent is a gelling agent. The amount of gelling agent present in proportion to the aqueous medium is such that the gel is firm and substantially free of syneresis. Heretofore, the gelling agents employed in such prior art gels have generally been vegetable gums such as agar-agar, carrageenan, locust bean gum and the like. These vegetable products present problems since they are natural products having nonuniform properties from batch to batch and since they must be prepared as hot solutions which must be gelled by cooling. Moreover, such vegetable products are subject to attack by microorganisms.
Therefore, it would be highly desirable to provide an air treating gel having a synthetic gelling agent which can be prepared with controlled properties from batch to batch and which does not require time consuming and expensive heating and cooling cycles.